Apple is turbocharging its "friend-shoring" strategy by shifting more iPhone production from China to India—a move that could soon result in American consumers purchasing iPhones made in India. However, during President Trump's Gulf tour, he expressed new concern over the supply chain shift (at least for the first time publicly), urging Apple CEO Tim Cook to re-shore some of that iPhone production to the United States.
"I had a little problem with Tim Cook yesterday," Trump told reporters in Qatar on Thursday, on his latest leg of his Middle East tour. The president said his problem centers around Indian factories producing a "majority" of iPhones for the U.S.
Trump criticized Cook's plan: "I said to him,' My friend, I treated you very well. You're coming here with $500 billion, but now I hear you're building all over India.' I don't want you building in India."
As a result of their meeting, Trump said Apple will be "upping their production in the United States."
Earlier in the week, in the first leg of his tour, Trump praised Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang at the Saudi-U.S. Investment Forum in Riyadh, saying: "Tim Cook isn't here, but you are."
Trump's comments follow a recent Financial Times report indicating that Apple's friend-shoring strategy could result in as many as 60 million iPhones being produced in India by 2026—or the amount required to satisfy the U.S. market.
Apple does not produce smartphones in North America but has pledged to invest $500 billion in the U.S. market over the next four years.
Wall Street analysts have estimated that U.S. iPhone production would take years and cost tens of billions of dollars.
U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick recently spoke with Cook about ramping up iPhone production in the U.S. Cook told Lutnick that "robotic arms" would be needed for production lines.
Lutnick said, "He's going to build it here," adding, "And Americans are going to be the technicians who drive those factories. They're not going to be the ones screwing it in."
Wedbush Securities recently estimated that a fully American-made iPhone could cost as much as $3,500, compared to the current average price of around $1,000. There are reports the next model could see the first price hike since the 2017 debut of the iPhone X.
Next lineup of iPhone...
Tarun Pathak, research director at tech analytics firm Counterpoint, said Trump's comments are a "familiar tactic from the president. He wants to push Apple to localize more and build a supply chain in the U.S., which is not going to happen overnight," adding, "Making in the US will also be much more expensive than assembling iPhones in India."
Update(1105ET): "We don’t yet know the official level of Russians, but from what we see,it looks phony," Zelensky told reporters in Ankara. So despite the Ukrainian leader earlier declaring "I am here" upon landing in Turkey, he is not in fact at the Russia-Ukraine talks in Istanbul.
This 'I am here' yet not actually 'there' charade generated some contradictory headlines earlier on Thursday. Zelensky continues his performative gestures aimed at impressing one man: Trump. He even explained that he is sending Defense Minister Rustem Umerov to head the Ukrainian delegation for the Istanbul meeting, now likely underway, out of respect for Trump and the peace process he initiated.
The Kremlin side meanwhile says it's ready to make compromises:
The head of the Russian delegation in Istanbul, Vladimir Medinsky, told Russian state media RIA that Moscow was “ready for discussions.”
“We are ready for discussions, for resuming the Istanbul negotiations; we are prepared for possible compromises and their discussion,” Medinsky said, referring to the last known direct talks between Russia and Ukraine that took place in Istanbul in the spring of 2022.
But apparently not on the table is the only thing which could actually end this tragic war - territorial concessions:
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said Kyiv will never recognize parts of Ukraine that are currently occupied as parts of Russia, as he confirmed peace talks are set to go ahead.
“In all discussions – and I emphasize this – and this is my unwavering position – we do not legally recognize any of our temporarily occupied territories as Russian. This is the Ukrainian land,” Zelensky told journalists.
Still, the fact the two sides are even at the same table in Istanbul is a huge development and start.
And again, everything Zelensky is doing appears designed to signal Trump - in order to keep America as Kiev's top weapons backer. "Despite the relatively low level of the Russian delegation, out of respect for President Trump, out of respect for the high level of the Turkish delegation and for President Erdogan, we still want to try to take at least the first steps towards a ceasefire, so I have decided to send our delegation to Istanbul now," Zelensky said further.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin's investment envoy and close aide, Kirill Dmitriev, has praised US President Donald Trump for putting together Russia-Ukraine peace talks in Istanbul, the first such direct dialogue between the warring countries since early 2022.
Trump and his team have "made the impossible possible" by bringing Moscow and Kiev to the table. Dmitriev further wrote on X that the Istanbul meeting is happening "against all odds/fierce resistance" and that if "not derailed last-minute, this could be a historic step to peace."
Dmitriev also specifically named Vice President J.D. Vance, Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and Secretary of State Marco Rubio - the latter two who are present in Istanbul - as major contributors to the mediation effort. The Kremlin had spent the opening years of the conflict blasting the Biden administration for constantly stoking the war and thwarting dialogue, taking Washington-Moscow relations to new historic lows.
As we noted earlier, Ukraine's President Zelensky is actually in Turkey, where he's set to meet with President Erdogan - but separately in the capital of Ankara, and has boasted that "I am here" and that Putin is not. Zelensky has even called the Russian delegation, largely composed of junior officials, "phony".
President Trump meanwhile, while attending meetings in Qatar, was asked by a reporter why the American leader is not himself present in Turkey for the talks:
"Why would he go if I’m not going?"
"I wasn’t planning to go and I didn’t think he would if I didn’t."
"But we have people there. Marco's doing a fantastic job, Marco's there..."
It remains that Putin has little reason or incentive to go, with war analysts widely recognizing that he remains in the driver's seat militarily, and with Ukrainian forces against the ropes.
Zelensky has until now offered no major concessions, and issues like permanent control over Crimea and the four eastern territories remain sticking points for Moscow. Thus there are unlikely to be any major breakthroughs in Istanbul, but the fact that the two sides are even at the table is a big accomplishment.
Ukraine will enter the Istanbul talks in a weaker position that it held in 2022.
Western support for Ukraine financially and economically is not as sound as it was then. No big ticket economic aid and assistance has been made available since the G7 agreement of a $50 billion package of loans, in June 2024. While European states scratched together new economic aid to Ukraine in April, this cannot make up for the reduction in US support.
In territorial terms, Russia withdrew from Kyiv as a concession to the first Istanbul talks and lost ground in Kharkiv and in Kherson in late 2022. However, Russia has gone on steadily to gain further territory in the Donbas since the end of 2023. So while both sides have scores on the board, Russia now maintains the military upper hand on the battlefield and that seems unlikely to change. These two factors in particular were behind President Trump’s February assertion that Ukraine has no cards to play.
What has stayed the same?
NATO membership is still off the table
The verified documents shared by the New York Times last June confirmed that Ukraine’s neutrality and non-membership of NATO was the central issue agreed upon in 2022. Ukraine was ready to become a “permanently neutral state” that would never join NATO or allow foreign forces to be based on its soil.
There seems no route for Ukraine to resile from that given its currently weakened negotiating position and President Trump’s stated view that NATO membership for Ukraine is not practical. Although Germany’s new foreign Minister, Johann Wadephul recently repeated the line that Ukraine’s path to NATO is irreversible, most have agreed, privately and publicly, that Ukraine’s path to NATO is a fraught if not impossible one.
Right now, just having the talks is a huge breakthrough
The Istanbul talks would not be happening had the Trump administration not pushed for it so hard. We don’t need to rehash the “did they or didn’t they” debate around why Ukraine abandoned the Istanbul agreement in April 2022. What is clear, is that Ukraine became entrenched, not only in not negotiating with Russia, but in excluding Russia from all discussions on peace in Ukraine from then onward.
Having agreed in principle for Ukraine to accept neutral status Zelensky was pushing his own ten point peace plan. This included, among other things, Russia withdrawing its troops to the pre-2014 border, i.e. giving up Crimea and the Donbass and creating a Euro-Atlantic Security Architecture, by which he meant Ukraine joining NATO. Peace summits were organized in various countries that explicitly excluded Russia, culminating in the Switzerland event on June 15, 2024.
At this event, President Zelensky was dug in deeper on resisting any engagement with Russia until a full withdrawal of its troops from Ukraine, which was a completely unrealistic proposal. “Russia can start negotiations with us even tomorrow without waiting for anything – if they leave our legal territories,” he said.
Even after President Trump was elected, European leaders clung to the line that “only Ukraine can decide what peace means.”’ I see no circumstances in which a Kamala Harris presidency would have cajoled President Zelensky to enter into negotiations. Tomorrow’s talks wouldn’t be happening unless the Trump administration broke a whole load of Ukrainian and European eggshells to get to this point.
Even though he was wrongly derided at the time by mainstream media, Steve Witkoff correctly pointed out in his March interview with Tucker Carlson that the territorial issues in Ukraine will be most intractable. Russia’s decision in October 2022 to formally annex the four oblasts of Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk, and Luhansk changed the calculus. However, Russia does not have full territorial control of any of those oblasts, which are cut through the middle by a hotly contested front line.
Resolving the line of control when the war ends is, by some margin, the most problematic challenge. This will be a hugely sensitive topic, and European allies will shoot down any major concessions to Russia, as they did when the idea surfaced that the U.S.might de jure recognise Russia’s occupation of Crimea.
The most obvious settlement is a de facto recognition of occupation, a Cyprus-style scenario, that does not stand in the way of Ukraine’s future membership of the European Union. Even that will require detailed agreement on issues around demilitarization of the line of control and enforcing any ceasefire.
Sanctions are probably tricky, but also tractable
As I have said before, there is enormous scope to a plan that allows for the immediate lifting of the bulk of zero-impact measures, phasing out the remainder at points agreed to by both sides. The toughest issue remains the $300 billion in frozen Russian assets, mostly held in Belgium. Russia has shown a willingness to concede this funding to support reconstruction in Ukraine, including those parts that Russia occupies.
But there is texture here. Freeing up those funds for reconstruction would immediately remove the source of interest payments that are meeting Ukraine’s obligations on its $50 billion in debt to the G7, agreed to in June 2024. But the more general policy question arises, how much of the freed up funding would be spent in Ukraine itself and how much in Russian-occupied Ukraine, where most of the war damage has occurred? The U.S. must keep the pressure on to ensure the talks stay on track.
A U.S. presence in Istanbul will be vital, to prevent, in particular, Ukraine from bailing on the talks. That’s why sending Steve Witkoff and Keith Kellogg makes sense. The former is trusted by the Russian side while the latter has built relationships in Ukraine. Their presence serves to keep the process moving forward until a deal can be pushed over the line and the fighting can stop.
Bear in mind that the 2022 talks ran for a month and a half and the circumstances have materially changed as I have indicated above. While there has been speculation that President Trump might drop into Istanbul, I am not sure that this is necessary if President Putin doesn’t himself attend. Knowing the Russians, I assess that Putin will want his own “‘meeting moment” with the U.S. President on terms that the Russian side can better choreograph. Indeed, that may be a prize for Russia’s engagement in the process, given its desire for a more comprehensive reset of relations with the U.S.
UnitedHealth Group shares plunged in early U.S. cash trading after The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday evening that the Department of Justice is conducting an ongoing criminal investigation into the company's Medicare practices.
We have not been notified by the Department of Justice of the supposed criminal investigation reported, without official attribution, in the Wall Street Journal today.
The WSJ's reporting is deeply irresponsible, as even it admits that the "exact nature of the potential criminal allegations is unclear."
We stand by the integrity of our Medicare Advantage program.
Shares of UnitedHealth are down 17% on the session. Since mid-April, shares have crashed 58% on a series of negative news, including earlier this week:
Shares are so far down 32% on the week, the worst weekly performance since the first week of August 1998.
This is comical: Bloomberg data shows that 82.8% of analysts covering UnitedHealth Group still rate the stock a "Buy," with an average 12-month price target of $438. The current price is $254.
Such swift and steep drawdowns have speculators wondering whether a bottom is near—a tough call, but definitely one to keep a close eye on.
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And the hits just keep on coming...
UNH shares are plunging after hours (down 6% and back below $300 for the first time since September 2020) following a report from The Wall Street Journal that, according to people familiar with the matter, the DOJ is investigating UnitedHealth Group for possible criminal Medicare fraud related to its Medicare Advantage business.
While the exact nature of the potential criminal allegations against UnitedHealth is unclear, the people said the federal investigation is focusing on the company’s Medicare Advantage business practices.
The Justice Department’s criminal healthcare fraud unit focuses on crimes such as kickbacks that trigger higher Medicare and Medicare payments.
UnitedHealth’s latest annual securities filing says the company “has been involved or is currently involved in various governmental investigations, audits and reviews,” and flags involved agencies including the Justice Department.
It doesn’t specifically mention the criminal, civil, and antitrust probes the Journal has reported.
The probe adds to a list of government inquiries into the company, including investigations of potential antitrust violations and a civil investigation of its Medicare billing practices, including at its doctors offices.
All of this comes as the Trump administration and Congress look to cut federal health spending, a key source of UnitedHealth’s success.
Kodiak Sciences (KOD) reported its Q1 2025 financial results and business updates. The company ended Q1 with $138.9 million in cash, expected to fund operations into 2026. The quarter saw a net loss of $57.5 million ($1.09 per share), compared to $43.0 million ($0.82 per share) in Q1 2024. R&D expenses increased to $43.6 million from $29.9 million year-over-year, while G&A expenses slightly decreased to $15.4 million.
The company is advancing as a precommercial stage retina-focused biotech with three Phase 3 assets targeting topline data in 2026. Kodiak plans to host an Investor R&D Update on July 16, 2025, featuring updates on their pipeline including Tarcocimab (GLOW2 and DAYBREAK studies), KSI-501, and KSI-101's APEX Phase 1b trial results.
Aytu BioScience ( AYTU +39.26% ▲ ) has released its Q3 earnings.
Aytu BioPharma, Inc. is a pharmaceutical company specializing in the commercialization of novel therapeutics, primarily focusing on prescription products for conditions such as ADHD and pediatric allergies.
In its fiscal 2025 third quarter earnings report, Aytu BioPharma announced a significant financial turnaround, reporting a net income of $4.0 million compared to a net loss in the previous year, alongside a 32% increase in total net revenue.
Key financial highlights include a 25% revenue growth in the ADHD portfolio and a remarkable 77% increase in the pediatric portfolio. The company also achieved an adjusted EBITDA of $3.9 million, reflecting improved operational efficiencies and strategic realignment efforts.
China’s latest education policies for the year restrict the extent to which children can use generative artificial intelligence in the classroom, according to alocal government reporton Thursday.
The guidelines cited in the report, which weren’t publicly available, covered AI education and generative AI use in primary and secondary schools during 2025.
China’s Ministry of Education did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Primary school students are prohibited from using unrestricted generative AI tools on their own, although an instructor may use the tech to assist with teaching, according to the local government report.
It added that middle schoolers can explore how generative AI reasons and analyzes information, while high schoolers are allowed to use the tech more broadly.
The report said the policies banned students from directly copying AI-generated content into homework and called on schools to establish a list of approved generative AI tools that can be used on school grounds.
But the national state media report did not discuss specific limits on AI use, and instead focused on how the policies aimed to promote “scientific” and “standardized” promotion of AI education suited to various stages of education, according to a CNBC translation.
Use of generative AI in China has increased significantly after DeepSeek, a homegrown rival to OpenAI, in late January released a chatbot app. Tencent, ByteDance and other companies have released similar chatbots that have surged in popularity in China.
ADC Therapeutics SA (NYSE: ADCT), a pioneer in antibody drug conjugates (ADCs) with a current market capitalization of $131 million, has reported promising results from the LOTIS-7 Phase 1b clinical trial. The trial evaluated the combination of ZYNLONTA and glofitamab in patients with relapsed/refractory diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL). An overall response rate (ORR) of 95.5% and a complete response (CR) rate of 90.9% were observed among 22 evaluable patients.
The data, as of January 17, 2025, indicated that the median duration of response (DOR) was not reached. The safety profile was described as manageable, with neutropenia being the most common Grade ≥3 treatment-emergent adverse event. Other Grade 3/4 adverse events included generalized edema, pericardial effusion, and pneumonia, each reported in 3.2% of patients.
The results will be presented at the European Hematology Association 2025 Congress (EHA2025) on Saturday, June 14, and at an oral encore presentation at the International Conference on Malignant Lymphoma (ICML) on Friday, June 20.
The LOTIS-7 study includes a multi-arm design to evaluate ZYNLONTA in combination with different agents for B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma (B-NHL). The primary endpoints of the study are safety and tolerability, with secondary efficacy endpoints including ORR, DOR, CRR, PFS, RFS, and OS.
ZYNLONTA, a CD19-directed ADC, has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the European Medicines Agency (EMA) for adult patients with relapsed or refractory large B-cell lymphoma after two or more lines of systemic therapy. Its mechanism involves binding to CD19-expressing cells, internalization, and the release of a potent payload leading to tumor cell death.
